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Gaston LeGume
Gaston Legume (simply known as Gaston) is the main antagonist of Disney's 30th full-length animated feature film, Beauty and the Beast, and its upcoming 2017 live action adaptation. He is also one of the tertiary antagonists in Mickey's House of Villains. He is a treacherous, chauvinistic, egotistical, traitorous, and arrogant hunter from Belle's village who was after Belle's hand in marriage by any means necessary and refused to let anyone else be with her, which made him the Beast's arch-nemesis. He was voiced by Richard White in the original 1991 film, and will be portrayed by Luke Evans (who previously portrayed Owen Shaw) in the 2017 live action adaptation. Personality Gaston embodies hyper-masculinity, as he happens to be a handsome and muscular hunter who likes to brag off his abilities toward others for pleasure. However, beneath his charming looks is a rude, impatient, destructive, manipulative, self-centered, narcissistic, and psychopathic person. He is very conservative and narrow-minded to the extent that he disapproves intellectualism as he regards ideas as "dangerous pastimes"; he is also extremely misogynistic and lascivious, as he believes that women's sole purpose in life is to serve men. Because of his charming looks, he is well-respected in the village as he was able to rouse up a mob to help him kill the Beast, although it was clear that he cared nothing for the villagers in general. He is also shown to be completely lustful and lecherous towards Belle, as he plans to marry her because of her beautiful looks as opposed to her nonconformist and unconventional personality. Even when Belle made it clear that she doesn't want to be with Gaston (with LeFou pointing out that the other women in the village are quite fond of Gaston), the latter still wants to marry Belle to satisfy his own ego, proving to be quite regardless of her feelings or anyone else's. He even felt extremely jealous after learning that Belle has feelings for the Beast, which only motivates him in hunting down the Beast so that he can have Belle for himself. He is also very abusive, insulting, and vituperative towards LeFou and his buddies, as he would subject them to pain and suffering whenever things go wrong (even if it's not their fault). Despite his anti-intellectualism, Gaston is quite intelligent and knowledgeable, as he can come up with clever plans to get what he wants. In spite of his intelligence, Gaston can also be quite spontaneous and impulsive as shown when he tried to grope Belle by menacingly cornering her and announcing "Say you'll marry me." before attempting to kiss her, which forced a disgusted Belle to reject him in return. In addition, he was extremely cunning and reckless, as shown when he openly bragged many key details about his plan to blackmail Belle into marrying him during the Gaston reprise, as well as during the climax when he stabbed the Beast in the back without assessing any risks, which ultimately led to his own demise. ''Beauty and the Beast'' Gaston is the local hero of a small French village at an unknown point in French history. He owns a large tavern where he and the villagers drink and talk. Inside, there is a large portrait of himself along with "trophies" from his hunt consisting mostly of animal antlers. He also says he eats five dozen eggs every morning to help make him "roughly the size of a barge." He first appears in the film shooting down a waterfowl headed south with perfect accuracy (implying that he had just returned from a hunting trip) and declaring his intent to marry Belle after acknowledging from LeFou of his popularity with all the women in the village. He then started pursuing Belle throughout the village as she returns home after buying a book from the local bookstore. Their meeting starts off well, but Gaston's remarks about women reading and thinking drive Belle away from him and she goes home, leaving him disappointed. In addition, after learning that Belle was going to aid her father Maurice, Gaston scolded LeFou for mocking Maurice (although it was implied that he mostly did that in an attempt to impress Belle rather than out of any genuine concern for Maurice). The next day, Gaston organizes a wedding outside Belle's cottage in an attempt to "surprise" her, complete with various decorations, a priest, and a wedding cake. He forces his way into the cottage and attempts to strong-arm her into marrying him, again making sexist remarks about women and housewifery (he even envisions the home they would live in as a "rustic" hunting lodge, with his latest kill roasting over the fire and Belle massaging his feet while their children—six or seven boys—play on the floor with their dogs). While he attempts to corner Belle in an attempt to kiss her, she manages to open the door that he has pinned her against, rejecting his proposal. This causes him to lose his balance and fly headfirst into a large mud puddle (complete with cat-tail plants) in front of Belle's cottage. Furious and humiliated, Gaston storms off, but not before vowing to make Belle his wife regardless of her refusal and throwing LeFou into the mud out of frustration. Later, during a snowstorm, Lefou leads the villagers in the tavern to sing a song about Gaston's greatness to cheer him up after his failed proposal. Maurice suddenly interrupts and warns the villagers about a 'monstrous' Beast who has locked up Belle as a prisoner in the tower of his castle. Thinking that Maurice is talking nonsense, the villagers throw him out of the tavern, which made Gaston realize that he can use Maurice's outrageous claim to his advantage. In a surprising display of animalistic cunning, he bribes Monsieur D'Arque (the owner of the local asylum) to throw Maurice into the asylum in order to pressure Belle into marrying him. Though D'Arque states that Maurice's claims and his odd inventions do not make him dangerous, he is willing to accept the bribe because he liked the despicability of the plot. However, just before Gaston and LeFou barge into Belle and Maurice's cottage, Maurice left for the castle on his own. Gaston orders LeFou stay outside the cottage and wait for their return. When Belle and Maurice eventually return to the cottage, LeFou immediately informs Gaston, and he sets his plan into motion. With the villagers gathered outside the house, D'Arque has his men drag Maurice towards their carriage, while Gaston makes Belle his offer - he will clear up the "misunderstanding" if she marries him. Horrified and disgusted, Belle refuses and instead proves her father's claims of the Beast's existence by using a magic mirror that the Beast had given her, causing all the villagers (including Gaston) to realize that Maurice was telling the truth. Following Maurice's release, Gaston grows more frustrated and shocked that his plan has failed, and becomes increasingly jealous when Belle begins referring to the Beast as "kind and gentle" as he let her go to help Maurice. Realizing that she prefers a "monster" over himself, Gaston refers to the Beast with this insult, to which a furious Belle retorts back by saying that Gaston is the real monster. In his jealousy and pride, a furious Gaston snaps out and snatches the mirror from Belle, successfully convincing the villagers that the Beast is a threat to the village and therefore must be brought down immediately by playing off their fear of monsters. An outraged Belle tries to stop this, but Gaston has her and Maurice locked in the basement to keep them from warning the Beast. He then leads a lynch mob to attack the Beast's castle and leave no one alive while declaring that he himself is to take down the Beast. Gaston bypasses the ensuing battle between the rioters and castle servants, which ends with the rioters fleeing away in defeat thanks to the castle servants' enchanted forms. Despite the loss of his mob, Gaston confronts the Beast alone in the West Wing, where he fires an arrow into him, tosses him out of the window onto a lower section of the roof and taunts him. The Beast doesn't respond back as he lost his will to live since Belle's departure, so Gaston uses a castle statue as a makeshift club to try to kill the Beast. However, the Beast regains his will when he witnessed Belle returning to the castle with her father (as they had escaped from the basement with help from Chip, who stowed away with Belle). As such, the Beast defends himself by viciously fighting back against Gaston with all his strength and ferocity. Though roughly even with his adversary, Gaston soon learns that he cannot rely on brute strength alone to kill the Beast, and instead begins taunting him over his love for Belle. Gaston even pushed the final button by claiming that Belle is his to take and no one else, but this immediately backfires as the Beast snaps out and lunges forth at Gaston to let his own guard down. The furious Beast then gets Gaston at his mercy by holding him above the castle roof by the throat, threatening to drop him into the deep castle moat for the trouble he caused. With his life at stake, Gaston seemingly abandons his pride and pathetically begs for mercy. At first, the Beast initially attempts to ignore Gaston's pleas, but realizes that he ought to be better due to his genuine love for Belle. With that in mind, the Beast grudgingly spares Gaston by ordering him to leave the castle and never return. However, when Gaston sees the Beast embracing Belle on the castle balcony, his hatred and jealousy arises again. Rather than leaving the castle, Gaston instead stabs the Beast in the back with a knife while dangling somewhat precariously from the balcony. The Beast swings his arm backwards at Gaston as he roars in pain, which makes Gaston lose his balance and plunge into the deep moat below, screaming to his death. Despite laying a fatal stab on the Beast, Gaston would die in vain that night; just as the Beast nearly succumbed to his own wounds, Belle confessed her love for him just before the last petal of the enchanted rose that kept him bound to his beast form fell, breaking the spell and reviving the Beast. This also allows the Beast and his enchanted servants to transform back to their human forms, much to their delight. Beauty and the Beast (2017) Gaston will appear in the upcoming 2017 remake, portrayed by Luke Evans. However, in this film, Gaston will be portrayed as a former soldier prior to his career as a hunter due to a portrait of him standing over fallen soldiers in the tavern. It is also implied that this incarnation of Gaston will be more darker than the original. Other Appearances ''Beauty and the Beast'' (musical) In the musical, Gaston's role remains the same as in the movie. Unlike in the movie however, Gaston is hinted to be adulterous in nature, as he states to the Bimbettes that his "rendezvouses" with them will continue after he marries Belle, implying that his belief of marriage is based on ownership rather than of love and affection. Gaston also gave Belle an unwanted kiss when she refuses his proposal again as her father is being taken away by D'Arque, resulting an angry Belle to slap him in the face before proving Maurice's sanity with the magic mirror. Also, during the fight against the Beast, Gaston arrogantly claimed that Belle sent him over to kill the Beast, but Belle's return to the castle made the Beast realize that what Gaston said is a lie. ''House of Mouse'' Much like most Disney villains, despite his death in the movie, Gaston gained a recurring role on House of Mouse as a guest character, once again voiced by Richard White. His most notable appearance, in the episode "Daisy's Debut", had a running gag in which he frequently injected himself into other people's conversations to announce, "No one verbs like Gaston!" This gag would later go through the entire series and would become a memorable catchphrase for Gaston. Instances of this catchphrase include, "No one sings like Gaston!" in response to Daisy's compliment on Ariel's singing, "No one makes faces in spoons like Gaston!" when Timon and Pumbaa are making faces in spoons (with an annoyed Timon answering back, "Actually, no one asked the opinion of Gaston!"), and "No one eats candied apples like Gaston!" before eating one of the Queen's apples and promptly collapsing, to which Daisy reacts to by snarking, "Now no one needs a wake-up kiss like Gaston!" Gaston was one of the many villains to join the takeover orchestrated by Jafar, Captain Hook, Ursula, Cruella De Vil and Hades in Mickey's House of Villains. ''Once Upon a Time'' Gaston is featured in the ABC series in a very minor role played by Sage Brocklebank. Here, he was engaged to Belle through an arranged marriage, but just like the film, she did not love him because she found him "shallow". Unlike his Disney counterpart he appears to be more noble and focused, as shown when he expressed concern for Belle's agreement to go with Rumpelstiltskin and when she refused his marriage proposal. He attempted to reclaim her from Rumpelstiltskin regardless, but was transformed into a rose and given as a gift to Belle. ''Descendants'' Gaston was revived, and it was also revealed that he had two twin sons, who he named after himself (which is not surprising); their names are Gaston Jr. and Gaston the Third, but his two sons have not inherited his obsession with girls. Reception Gaston is considered one of Disney's most popular villains. He ranked 11th in an official poll, and the Nostalgia Critic placed him as the 5th best Disney villain, citing him as being different from most other Disney villains in that he wasn't pure evil from the start. Fans on the Internet often jokingly idolize him similar to how the townspeople do in the movie, giving birth to the "No one (X'') like Gaston" meme, and the "Gaston" song in particular is a very popular source for YouTube Poop. Quotes Trivia *Gaston was going to be voiced by Rupert Everett, the same man who also played Doctor Claw in the live action film adaptation, ''Inspector Gadget, and the voice of Prince Charming in Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third. Everett was denied because he didn't sound arrogant enough, something he would later keep in mind when voicing Prince Charming. *The animators researched high school and college jock stereotypes to create Gaston's menacing and arrogant mannerisms. *Gaston was not present in Kingdom Hearts II, despite being the main antagonist of Beauty and the Beast. Xaldin, a member of Organization XIII, serves as this world's main villain and reprises the role of Forte. **However, Gaston finally debuted in the Kingdom Hearts series in Kingdom Hearts chi. *Gaston was created for the film and does not appear in the original fairy tale Disney based the film on. Beauty's sisters (who were cut from the film) are the antagonists of the original fairy tale. *Originally, Gaston was going to say to The Beast: "It's over Beast! Time to die!". This was changed, because it was slightly out of character, as Gaston is attempting to kill the Beast so that he can have Belle for himself. **When Gaston says, "Belle is mine!" his lips instead synch to "Time to die!", implying that the filmmakers changed the line late in development. *In two mockbusters of the Disney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, namely the Golden Films version and The Secret of The Hunchback, the respective main villains are clearly based off Gaston, specially the Golden Films version. *Though Gaston persuaded the villagers to hunt the Beast by lying that he was a threat to the entire village (even though he only left his castle to protect Belle and never even left the castle otherwise), Gaston ultimately decided to deal with the Beast himself, likely due to seeing him as a rival for Belle's affections and the villagers would potentially discover the Beast's peaceful nature if they discovered him before Gaston. *During his fall off the castle, you can quickly see that some skulls appear in his eyes. This is likely to symbolize that Gaston did not survive the fall into the castle moat. *There were several alternative versions to Gaston's death: **After wounding the Beast, Gaston fell from the castle into the woods, where he has survived with a broken leg. However, he is confronted by several wolves who previously pursued Maurice and Belle. Without hesitation, the wolves close in on Gaston and mauled him to death. This scene was removed, but was later reused for the death of Scar in The Lion King (the wolves were replaced by Shenzi, Banzai & Ed, and the Hyena Clan). **An alternative version of his death was for Gaston to lay multiple fatal stabbings on the Beast and commit suicide by willingly falling to his death laughing maniacally, as he feels that if he wouldn't have Belle for himself, then neither would the Beast, but not before he lashes out at Belle for ruining his pride and preferring the Beast over him. However, this was edited out since it was too dark, rewritten to have Gaston lose his footing after stabbing the Beast and only requiring one stab to finish him off. *Before Prince Hans from Frozen who is confirmed to be 23 years old, Gaston was the youngest major Disney villain to date most believing him to be around 25. *In a Youtube series called The Frollo Show, Gaston is the deuteragonist and is Frollo's best friend. Ironically, he is portrayed as rather heroic, though otherwise he is similar to personality to his Disney counterpart. 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